Florida war veterans returning from Afghanistan struggle to get treatment for invisible wounds

Amid negligence and lack of resources, military families in South Florida jump through hoops to get wounded warriors the help they need

Posted: 10:50 AM, April 11, 2014Updated: 10:50 AM, April 11, 2014

Sgt. Hayes Sebastian Brahmer stands at a wedding with his wife Barbara Brahmer and their daughter Michaela. Brahmer, 34, has served in the military since he was 18-years-old.

MIAMI - Iraqi insurgents in Mosul were shooting at Hayes Brahmer and his platoon. Sgt. Steve Holloway fell backwards. A 7.62mm bullet blasted a vertebrate; he couldn't walk. Brahmer dragged him behind a truck. After several surgeries, he tried to defy a wheelchair at Miami's Veteran Affairs rehab -- and called Brahmer a hero.

Now Brahmer, 34, struggled with invisible wounds, but was unable to get a bed at the Miami VA's rehab. That he had served in the military since he was 18-years-old and had earned numerous medals did not get him any special treatment. His wife said she was "disgusted and outraged" when a National Guard Sergeant Major referred to Holloway's hero as "damaged goods."

Barbara Brahmer-Benson, a former inpatient psychiatric nurse, said she felt the military had turned its back on him. Her husband, an Army Staff Sergeant working at the Pembroke Pines Armory in Hollywood, "begged" for help.

"I need to learn coping skills."

"I need to dry out from the alcohol."

"I know I can do it but I just need help."

South Florida wounded veterans struggle with waiting lists at VA hospitals. And for those who do get access, the quality is questionable. While the need for funding is increasing with warriors returning from Afghanistan, the Pentagon warned the 2015 budget will reduce health care funding.

"It's hard for a warrior to lay it all out on the table and say they need help," the 29-year-old military wife said in tears. "He has risked his life so many times and he is seeking help and he is being declined."

Gov. Rick Scott said VA hospitals in Florida were turning away state inspectors this week, after a recent internal investigation revealed several patients died in their care. One in his 20s died because of lack of surveillance, inspectors reported.

The warrior was home alone in Pompano Beach. Therapy was not soothing the wounds. Alcohol wasn't numbing the pain. His wife arrived without their 10-month-old daughter Michaela to find him drunk. He unloaded his gun, and locked it in the safe to avoid doing "anything stupid."

That night, she took him to University Hospital's emergency room in Tamarac. Hours before the scare, Brahmer told her he wanted to go to a program for active military personnel that treats post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse in Connecticut.

Brahmer-Benson couldn't find her husband a bed at a VA rehab in Florida. She juggled bureaucratic holdups from the insurance company, the hospital case managers, South Command Medical in Doral, and the National Guard. There were waiting lists at the Miami, Bay Pines and West Palm VA rehab programs.

In the report, inspectors said a veteran in his 20s left the hospital and went to "pick up money that had been wired to him." The night before he died of a drug overdose, he was so high he "required assistance to get into bed."

The unidentified vet had served in Afghanistan – the country that produces 80 percent of the world's heroin -- and died with the drug in his system.

After saving Holloway's life in Iraq, Brahmer worked as a military recruiter for about three years. He told teenage students that right after high school, the Marine Corps took him to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Djibouti, north of Somalia.

"He was enthusiastic about serving," Brahmer-Benson said. "He helped young soldiers and wanted to work in an ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps] program."

Brahmer did not tell recruits that picking up body parts had been a part of his job, or that he knew the smell of death that a roadside bomb left behind. He also didn't talk about his struggle with insomnia.

His "bubbly personality" was gone after he served in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012, his wife said. Combat stress had affected his testosterone levels and he was irritable.

"I could see in his eyes [that] he wasn't the same --- [he had] cold angry eyes," Brahmer-Benson said.

HOPE IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR

As frustration broiled, the advise she got from the military, she said, was not to "go up the chain of command" to ask for help, because it wouldn't be in her "husband's best interest."

In an act of desperation, she called Memorial Hospital of Tampa, her former employer. As a nurse, she had seen men in the military hospitalized under the Florida Baker Act, which was holding her husband in Tamarac for 72 hours.

A colleague helped her find a private rehabilitation program in Central Florida that had beds available. And TriCare insurance covered it.

Brahmer was admitted to the 30 day program March 21st.

"It was so hard on us to get him to where he is. I felt like they were trying to wrong my family. There was no help," Brahmer-Benson said. "If I didn't push as much as I did, I don't know where he would be."